The Infrastructure Health and Safety Association (IHSA) will introduce a new mental health program tailored to the industry in June, which developers say will be an important step in building worker resilience as well as addressing stigma and stress.
Two IHSA mental health program experts say the program is a major step forward in treating mental illness among professionals and addresses multiple requests from stakeholders.
According to Michelle Roberts, IHSA vice president of stakeholder relations, two pilot sessions of the job-training program, The Working Mind (TWM), held in May, were well received, and the first three of 15 courses being rolled out between June and December are already full and have waiting lists.
“We’re excited because this will be the first course offered to industry on June 24th,” Roberts said recently.
“We know there’s going to be an upsurge in interest and that creates a lot of excitement for us because we definitely want to create momentum for people to get educated and become more aware.”
The Mental Health Committee is a valuable partner
IHSA partnered with the Mental Health Commission of Canada to adapt the TWM for trade workers and supervisors in sectors served by IHSA, including construction, electrical, transportation and public works.
TWM courses are customized with five-hour sessions for workers, eight-hour training for supervisors, and a five-day, eight-hour-a-day schedule for facilitators.
Modules for all participants will cover mental health and stigma, workplace mental health, stress and resilience, and managers will take an additional course called ‘Supporting their teams’.
The first sessions will be delivered online free of charge, with on-site visits planned for the future.
Cathy Martin, a research and mental health specialist at the IHSA, explains that 10 years ago, mental health programs received little attention in the construction industry, in part because the industry’s physical health and safety management systems were so complex.
But the Canadian Mental Health Association has begun to champion the cause, and some major corporations, unions and construction industry stakeholders have also started to join in. The pandemic has raised awareness of issues of stress, burnout and anxiety, and brought mental health into a broader societal discussion, Martin said.
Martin said while mainstream TWM isn’t well suited to the construction industry, it is a powerful program and the IHSA has begun the work of adapting it.
She said workers in male-dominated industries are not used to sharing what’s on their minds and the stigma around asking for help comes into focus.
“We talk about pain and suffering, but we don’t share other (feelings), and that’s probably the biggest barrier – the stigma,” she said.
Customized Storytelling
The customized TWM for the Trades elements will include a storytelling and experiential learning component with six videos for facilitators to choose from.
The statistics presented relate to trade and industry and references to factors leading to poor mental health in the workplace reflect trade working conditions.
“The stories are being told by real workers in Ontario trades. They’re sharing their struggles and their paths to recovery and opportunities for hope,” she said. “These stories resonate because they are real workers in trades.”
The IHSA held five focus group sessions with stakeholders last fall and determined it was moving in the right direction.
“We asked, ‘What do you need? What are your struggles? What do you want to see? What kind of content?'” Roberts said. “We knew we needed a foundational knowledge, and Working Minds gives us that foundational knowledge through the lens of a profession. That gave us confidence.”
Martin said the need for analysis, prevention and treatment is widespread, with TWM being just one area of focus that will increase.
“‘The Working Mind for the Trades’ is just one piece of a much larger puzzle that I’m trying to put together,” she said.
X/Follow the author on Twitter translator.
